abortion secrets in sociological science

Though abortion is a more common event in the United States than miscarriage, this article shows that more Americans hear of women who have had miscarriages than they hear of women who have had abortions. This is a result of both the patterns of secret telling and keeping: more Americans tell miscarriage secrets to more people than abortion secrets, and more Americans keep abortion secrets from more people than miscarriage secrets.

In the introduction, I described two scenarios: one in which people tend to hear secrets they previously approved, and this pattern would contribute to a stasis in public opinion and a second scenario in which people hear secrets they previously condemned and this scenario would inspire social influence and facilitate social change. The data analyzed here illustrate the first scenario. They show a strong trend whereby individuals who hold restrictive views toward abortion are less likely than their liberal peers to report knowing someone who has had one. People tend to hear those secrets about which they already approve and are less likely to hear secrets about which they disapprove. Secret keeping and selective disclosure intensify this experience of homophily above and beyond any objective network segregation.